Veggie Etouffee

I made a yummy veggie etouffee for dinner tonight.



Start by sauteeing the aromatics. Here, I'm using the Holy Trinity: onion, celery, and bell pepper. I like a mix of yellow, red & green peppers. Don't criticize my knife skills. I know my cuts are uneven. I'm ok with that.

Next, add garlic and zucchini.

Then, add flour (which you browned in the dry pan earlier), stir to coat veggies, and add pureed tomatoes and spices.

I guess I didn't get a picture of the next step, but it involves kidney beans, green onions and parsley.

Serve over rice.

Double Trouble Brownie Cookie Bars

I made these for a Team Member Bake Sale at work, to benefit the Whole Planet Foundation.



http://www.wholeplanetfoundation.org/


They start with a base of chocolate chip cookie dough:







I'm mixing up the brownie batter:






Pour on the brownie layer:






Spread it out real pretty, now:






Ready for the oven:






I like to top them with a chocolate glaze and more pecans.

Yeast rolls

I was off today, so I decided to bake some rolls. I love this recipe. The dough is so nice to work with, and the rolls are light, buttery and delicious!

The dough:

The dough is rising on top of the tv, next to Vulcan and the Virgin Mary.

The dough has risen, and is ready to portion.

Portioned, shaped, and ready for their second rise. The foil isn't really necessary, but this pan sometimes gives food a funny taste. I need a new pan.

Out of the oven, and ready to eat! Nom nom nom!!!

Dessert for family meal

On Saturdays at work, we have Family Meal, or staff meal. Sometimes I make dessert for us. This week, I made a vanilla pound cake, and served it with strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream. It was a big hit.

The pound cake:

Help yourself!

The aftermath:

Marine Corps birthday cake

Wow, I am waaaaay behind on blogging! Back in November, I made a birthday cake for the Marine Corps for a local Marine veteran's group. The cake is a basic genoise, brushed with a citrus syrup, filled with raspberry buttercream, and frosted with a French buttercream.

I made the Marine Corps seal using a frozen buttercream transfer technique. Basically, the buttercream is piped onto glass with the pattern underneath. Then you freeze the buttercream until it is firm enough to flip it onto the cake. You can get some pretty good details this way.

This is the biggest cake I have ever made. I'm really proud of it.


Here is the whole cake:

And a detail of the seal:

Christmas candy

I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of the mountains of Christmas candy Barry & I made! We spent an entire Saturday making truffles, chocolate-covered caramel corn, marshmallows, and all sorts of yummy treats. It was an enormous Christmasy funfunfun day! But you will just have to imagine the peanut butter truffles rolled in chopped peanuts, the gingerbread truffles with a dark ginger ganache filling and spicy Rice Krispy coating, the strawberry marshmallows...actually, I think I got pix of the marshmallows.

I spent most of the day Christmas Eve making more candy, and I did get pictures this time. Here's a big plate of candy I took to my brother's house. It has (clockwise from top left): divinity, regular marshmallows and strawberry marshmallows, Earl Grey tea chocolates, chocolate-covered peanut butter crunch, white chocolate latte truffles, and chocolate-covered candied orange peel in the center.

Chocolates

Earlier this month, I took an Artisanal Chocolate Class from Andrew Shotts. I can't believe how much candy we made in 3 days.

Here I am with our display table.



These are a couple of pictures of the table from the side.





These are extra-bittersweet chocolates.

The flowered ones are filled with tea-flavored ganache.

And a few more assorted pictures.

Desserts

I finally had time to take some pictures at work. It has been so unbearably hot here that people just aren't eating as much, and we haven't done nearly as many desserts as usual.


This is our Chocolate Dome Cake. It has chocolate cake enclosing a chocolate mousse filling, covered with chocolate ganache. I serve it with an espresso anglaise sauce, and lots of fruit. We sell TONS of this cake.





Another extremely popular dessert is our Peach Crostata. It's a really simple dessert--just a buttery pastry crust, filled with sliced peaches. It's served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and I like to garnish it with peaches & raspberries.




Our Creme Brulee doesn't photograph well. I love this dessert. I think it's one of the best desserts we do.

This is a cake our chef adores. For some reason, it has never sold very well. Every time we put it on the menu, they try a new name for it, trying to get people to order it. This time, they have named it after our chef, calling it his favorite cake. Now, I sell out of it every night!

It is layers of vanilla genoise, with a white wine & sherry zabaglione filling, covered with meringue. I serve it with creme anglaise and fruit.

This week, we started selling a Caramel Fig Cheesecake. I made a yummy fig sauce to go with it, and I serve it with some brulee figs, and a few raspberries for color.

And here is a birthday platter I did tonight. I love making these.

Chocolate marble pound cake

Several times lately, Lea has mentioned how much she would like a pound cake. Ok, ok, leave me alone! Here's your pound cake! Are you happy now?

Salsa kitty

Gracie seems very proud of her jars of salsa. It's hard work for a kitty to can that much stuff.

Cupcake

I learned a new technique for frosting cupcakes, instead of the usual swirl of frosting. I think this one looks kind of like a rose. This was my first try at it. I could use a little practice.

Happy birthday!

One of my favorite ladies at my church turned 80 this week, and her daughters asked me to bake a cake for her. I had so much fun making it!



Jeanne often wears pretty pastel colors, and always has a bright, sunny smile, so I wanted a cake with pastel decorations that would look happy and cheerful. It's a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, decorated with fun little fondant flowers. I brushed the flowers with a tiny bit of pearl powder to make them shimmer. They aren't so glittery in person as they are in the pictures.



Here's the cake:

And some details of the flowers:

Wedding cake

A couple of weeks ago, I got to help with a wedding cake at my church. The flower committee did all the flowers for the wedding, but they were a little apprehensive about the fresh flowers that the bride wanted on the wedding cake, so I agreed to help.



Disclaimer: I did not bake the cake, or ice it, and I had a lady from the flower committee giving me moral support and helping choose flowers. Still, I am proud of how pretty the cake looked.



The flowers around the base look a little more blue in the picture, but they were the exact same shade of purple as the tablecloths.

Chocolate!

At the end of May, I took a chocolate class at the Notter School of Pastry Arts . It was the most amazing thing I have ever done! I still can't quite believe that I made all these things.

Here are some modeling chocolate roses we made. Mine is the middle one in the front row. These will be sprayed with colored cocoa butter to color them red.

Here is the little showpiece we used the roses in. It's the first piece I made, and by far the simplest. After seeing the other things we made, this one looks pretty basic.

These are the petals for the second flower I made. You make them by dipping the tip of a knife in white chocolate and then dabbing it on a sheet of acetate. Then you put the acetate in a tube so that the petals will be curved.









And here is the assembled flower.

Here it is after Chef Notter airbrushed it with colored cocoa butter.

And the finished piece.

Now the third and final showpiece. You know the routine by now. Here's the flower. The petals are made from shavings of white chocolate.

Here are some of the components I will use for the showpiece.

And the finished product. I think this is the best thing I made.